Pushing Buttons

Ive described antagonism as the ability to unlock a secret code to unravel an opponent. Its like you slowly gather enough information to create an immediate rage machine in their psyche. You acquire the proper buttons like making fun of a lisp or dubious past conquest, and all you have to do is punch the code. The key is dancing your fingers along the buttons so as to threaten and confuse your advesary, but not allow an infraction which constitutes stepping over the line. The subtle balance is an intricate dance of predator and prey that is not to be attempted by the average tightlipped joe in a bar. You fucks should keep to yourselves and drown your sorrows in your gin and tonics. Im gonna take out my problems by belittling others and thereby feeling better about myself by comparisson. Where you and I differ, is when I have accidently pressed a button and a dude is ready to throw fists I am not encumbered by my pride. I will either sucker punch and run, or cry like a bitch, depending on which is less likely to end in me actually having to display my dukes.
In twenty years of being a loudmouth asshole, I have never taken a beating from anyone who wasnt a friend. Many times I have had strangers demanding a confrontation, but my womanly tactics have always superceded their anger. By all rights, I should have been peeled off a bar room floor no less than fifteen times. If you factor in the times I should have been peeled off a poker room floor, the number increases exponentially. Lets just say I like to drink a little when I play sometimes. Nothing out of control, a couple washington apple shots here, a jagr bomb there, where the fuck is that girl with my long island? That kind of shit. As it happens, alcohol is a social lubricant and sometimes you end up sayin some shit that was maybe best left unsaid. Such was the scene last night at Ceasar’s Palance when I rolled through last night to see the decorom of the newly installed poker room.
I was up a few bucks at the track, and I had just taken my roommate Russell for two bills at backgammon, so I was feeling a little frisky. I decided rather than sitting in a limit game, I would throw some chips in play at the no limit tables. I grabbed a seat with one and two dollar blinds and cashed in for two hundred dollars. I played real tight for about an hour, but drank the whole time. I made a small score reraising a player I put on a draw when I had a shit hand, and another on a pair of aces that held up. I started talking a little shit, and telling people that it was about time we started playing some fucking poker. “I didnt come here sit around, I say we throw some chips in the middle and play some fucking poker. Whos gamblin? Anyone here come out tonight to gamble? Im puttin some money in the middle, whos comin with me?”
People were generally havin fun and no one took it personal, I lost big on pocket nines that I played large against an ace king that flopped its king. The moulton meter was heading from buzzed to assaholic, and I just decided to start bullying people despite my marginal stack. A new guy sitting down at the table, just resembled a giant vagina as far as I was concearned. When he made his first raise to fifteen after sitting down, I looked down to find pocket dueces. It folded over to me and I went all in. Dude considered for a long time and mucked it, asking, “You probably had me didnt you?” I flipped my two dueces and stole my roommate Russell’s line by responding “No, I just knew you were a pussy.” Everyone laughed at the dude, and I think physical steam came off his ears. I was sloshed at this point, so I saw a four duece of clubs suited and damn did they look pretty. I realized the pussy was in the blind, so I slopped ten bucks out there, pointing at dude and sayin “I raise him”. I got three calls, and the flop came 2, 5, Jack. I bet out another twenty and only the man with labia lips called. Turn was an eight, another twenty bet and called. River was another five, I bet all in. Dude considered and called, flahsing pocket aces. Fuck.
I sent half my stack his way, and really didnt have much to say. Within a couple hands I pushed with Ace Four and got called by Ace King. Fuck. Those washington apples were like thirty bucks a pop, and I had to collect what remained of my dignity while I located my roommate to drive me home. I ate god know what as part of my drunken buffet, but when I came to with an aching tummy on my couch, I was covered in popcorn kernels. CSI hasnt been by yet, but best I can figure from the placement and frequency of the stray popables, I grew angry with futile attempts at cracking the bag’s papyrus code and simply ripped it open from the middle with skill and brawn. I think it really pushed Russell’s buttons to have to vacuum the debacle in the morning.
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10:55 am
The Ponies
I finally got paid for a few weeks work yesterday and landed myself a hefty fifteen hundred dollar paycheck. I know it might not seem like the bonanza that it is, but when you are starin down a two digit bank account for the better part of a month, I felt like my shit struck oil. Regardless of the fact that the profits should have been earmarked for the landlord or my creditors, shit was basically found money. So as my buddy Scalley and I watched JJ Reddick break the ACC scoring record, it just felt like one of those days where everything was gonna to go my way. Accordingly, I thumbed the hundreds that lined my rear pocket and I said what any self respecting investor would, “Lets go to terribles and bet some horses already.”
Initially, Scalley laughed knowing full well that I had worked at a race and sportsbook and that once you realized the margins the track takes you would have to be on drugs to bet the ponies. They basically count up all the money bet total, take twenty percent for themselves, then pay out the remaining 80 percent to the winners. Luckily, I was high at the time, so shit was no joke. I announced my intention to place a 100 dollar show wager on the favorite in the next race to post, and Scalley quickly agreed to be my lieutenant. We marched next door to Terrible’s Casino, and waded through the huddled masses yearning to hit nickle jackpots towards the sportsbook. Once inside we became a part of the scummiest contingent of humanity, the horsebetters.
I used to love working the sportsbets side of the sportsbook. The mad dog would be giving out tips with his insiders view of the sports landscape, and people would be bantering back and forth about the injury report or the trends. Everything had a nice, easy pace, where you could just shoot the shit while you processed a wager. I got on such a hot streak in the NFL that regulars would try to get my opinions on the shy and they would slip me an envelope here or there when I hit. Thats not to say I didnt hand out my share of losers as evidenced by the damning evidence that lines this blog, but the presence of vicarious action was never to be frowned upon. The whole time I was stationed at my register, I could watch the live results on the eight monitors overhead, life was never sweeter.
Then, there were the times I got stuck with the horsebetters, and it was an entirely different animal. These were desperate men who scanned their Racing Form like a hungry homeless man digging through the trash outside a donut shop. They were missing teeth, or hair, or both, and they were always dressed in casino schwagg like a “Breeders Cup ’92” shirt. Their breath wreaked of liquor and they couldnt understand their terrible luck, just miserable people the whole lot of em. Rather than place their bets in a timely manner, they would wait until the last possible second so that they knew the post time odds. They would scamper forward from the back of the room and bark orders at me as I furiously tried to locate the track and race. If you accidently pressed the wrong macro, you had to be ready to get an earful of shit for not getting them in before the race went off. In order to allievate some of my festering anger when stuck in sportwriters hell, I would write down quotes from these handicapping hooligans who truly defined what it was to be a compulsive gambler. I saved all of the best quotes written on the back of parlay cards. Here are a few of my favorites, and I promise that they were all said to me exactly as they appear, by a man who was betting horses:
“I have my cab money on the seven to place.”
“The 8 is a grey horse, grey horses never lose.”
“Can I have that in 3 tens? I owe my mom ten bucks.”
“That’s the problem, you look at the board and say ‘oh, I gotta bet it’.”
“Whats the total? 68 dollars, wow I got my betting shoes on today.”
(Man with a pained expression placing a bet as the bugle sounds to signify the begining of racing at a particular track)“I hear that fucking bugle in my sleep.”
“Actually, let me give you a 20, I need that change for church.”
“If you keep on takin my bets, Im gonna keep on cashing ’em. Lord have mercy.”
And one bonus quote from a grizzled old man in a yellow flannel jacket with a two day beard, cashing an 11 dollar push on the chargers game, but explaining why the cowboys were winning: “Every year at Christmas people want to fuck people up, its a vendetta. They are all fucking pros. Their necks are bigger than their heads. The bills, the fucking bengals, they are all pros. Its fucking Christmas, bet the spoilers. I make fucking money. Its like pussy, it took me a long time to learn, you gotta eat it before you fuck it.” Once again, this man was a regular horsebetter cashing an 11 dollar push and pontificating on a game he likely had no action on. These are the victims of addiction who make me feel less concearned about my habit.
Flash back to present day, where me and Scalley are immersed in this counter culture, ready to take a trotter down the home stretch. The next race to go off was the fifth at golden gate which had about five minutes to post. The favorite at the time was the eight horse going off at two to one, with the two horse at three to one, and the one horse at five to two. I grabbed a sheet, and found out the name of the eight horse was “one of a kind”, at which point it was pretty much a done deal. I stepped to the plate, threw down benny boy, and had a hundred to show on the eight. Scalley followed suit with fifteen bucks on each of the win place and show, and we were ready to cheer our stallion on from the gallery. As the five minutes passed, our pick dropped out of the favorite role, and by post time he was payin out like a third place horse with the one and two horses getting top billing. Further clouding our optimism was the fact that “one of a kind” seemed smaller than the field and he was fighting with the jockey about taking his place in the gate. As we contemplated a void, the gates opened and the derby was dancin.
Whenever the true degenerates watched their races, they would scream shit like “Stay back, right there, come on seven, come on seven, move, move damnit, what the fuck are you doing? Run you worthless fuck. You believe this shit, run damnit. Come on seven, come on seven, FUCK.” I tried my best to mimic their process as the eight horse took hold of the third position the whole race then started to die down the stretch. “Come on eight, come on eight, run damnit.” The eight found his second wind, held off the two horse and got himself second place. Well within the confines of a show wager, and barring the stewards coming in to inquire and fuck shit up, I was abouts to get paid. Scalley hit two legs of his win place show, and we were both ready cash some fucking winners. With the late changes in the betting landscape, my show wager actually paid alright. I got forty profit on my hundred, while scalley collected 54 on his 45 outlay, because he lost the 15 on the win. Both of us walked out of there, up money after bettin the ponies, I have to say it was a good day.

Pushing Buttons

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